


a cabin in the woods

by MonikaFileFan



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, Smut, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MonikaFileFan/pseuds/MonikaFileFan
Summary: Her spine arched and swayed, reminding her of the curving evergreen trees in the whipping wind. She could see her hair cascade down her back like a waterfall in the shadows of the flickering fire. She let a primal moan rumble through her at the sight. Being stuck in this rustic cabin, clearly left to age among the wilderness had Scully feeling wild herself, and it felt as if their bodies danced to an ancient song among the elements.
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 28
Kudos: 174
Collections: X-Files Secret Santa Fanfic Exchange (2019)





	a cabin in the woods

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarie_Fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarie_Fairy/gifts).



> Prompt: Sarah asked for first time fic with some fluff and romance. Likes tropes, “(bed sharing, undercover, stakeout), first time, smut, angst, UST, RST, i'm a sucker for a happy ending :-)”
> 
> Sarah, I really hope I met your expectations for this. I had the hardest time pinpointing a timeframe and deciding what I wanted to do because there were just so many opportunities lol. I really enjoyed writing this take of their first time, too. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Thank you to my beta’s on this one: Cate and Laia for their fast work!

_“The dark and the light are braided and bound.”_

_-Marc Ian Barasch_

WOLVERINE RUN ROAD

OUTSKIRTS OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN 

FEBRUARY 1, 2000

DUSK

Mother Nature was wild, furiously bending the winter elements to her will. 

As the wind whipped shards of ice against the fogged windshield, the front tires of their Taurus continued to toss up chunks of ice and snow while the back ones spun in a tractionless circle, stuck.

Mulder huffed, slapping the steering wheel. “Dammit!”

The red light glowed angrily on the darkened dash, needlessly reminding them both that they had little gas to waste. 

“Mulder, where the hell are we again?” She pinned him with an _“I_ _told you not to take that exit”_ look and unfolded the well-worn map shaped as a mitten once again. “Because we are nowhere near a highway, a gas station, nor civilization to be exact.”

“That piece of paper doesn’t come with a ‘you are here’ arrow, Scully. Turning off the plowed and salted highway wasn’t the best idea. I realize this now but we’ll obviously do better without a map. We’ll be fine.”

She tsked, resigned that they will not be checking into the nearest _Stop N Sleep_ tonight _._ “Oh, right, I forgot you were once an Indian Guide. And how many decades ago was this woodland survival lesson?” 

“Ouch,” he chuckled. “I must’ve missed that specific one because, obviously, my first question would have been, ‘which leaf is safe to wipe my ass with when _my_ nature calls?’ And I certainly would have remembered the answer.”

Rolling her eyes and fighting off a smile, she felt her annoyance that had been bubbling to the surface for hours begin to dissipate. “Look around, Mulder. Doesn’t get more _real_ than this.” She shook her head and patted his thigh, exhaling remaining tension as she muttered, “a disaster waiting to happen.”

“And yet, you continue to let me behind the wheel seven years later.” He smiled at her with that guilty puppy dog expression she hated to love. 

“Have to get amusement where I can,” she teased. “Don’t worry, I still have faith that one day you’ll learn that I’m always right.” 

“Always?”

“Usually.”

He cocked a brow. “Sometimes?”

“Fine, we share the credit, okay?” She nudged him and he nodded, covering her hand with his.

“Always.”

  
  


***

  
  


An hour passed and they sat together in comfortable silence, bundled from the neck down, dozing as layers of snow continued to rise along the windshield. There wasn’t much else they could do with spotty cell phone service continuing to drop their calls. As the last of their gas began to putter through the engine, Scully could tell that Mulder had come to the same conclusion as she: the car would die any minute and so would their heat. 

Mulder huffed sharply. “I’m almost positive there’s supposed to be a gas station down this stretch of road.” His expression was sheepish yet his tone held a confidence she simply did not share. A dangerous concoction for one Fox Mulder. “A building or…”

“...or we’re lost and stranded on a deserted back country road in the middle of a winter storm. It may be beautiful, but I’m sure you share my apprehension in trudging through another frozen tundra.” 

“Oh, I don’t know. I think we did alright last time. Considering…” 

She smiled softly in gratitude and twisted the fringe of his scarf through her fingers. “Yes, we did.”

Mulder had said that helping to solve this missing persons case, in the middle of nowhere Michigan, was a good way to start the new year. It was true; finding the little girl and returning her to her family safely was just what they needed to chase away winter's gloom. Earning themselves a pat on the back from the Director for it this morning sure helped smooth over her unapproved Ivory Coast travel from months ago as well.

Mulder’s restless knee bounced against hers and her head lolled as she considered what their next move should be. His knuckles casually feathered across her wrist as he looked out the rapidly frosting window. “We can’t sit in here much longer.”

“No, we can’t,” she sighed. “Time to try the phones again.”

“I’m going to get out again and stand farther down the road. Maybe I can hold a signal this time.” Slipping on the leather gloves she’d gotten him for Christmas, he got out and paced the snow-coated road. 

Stranded with Mulder in the middle of nowhere might’ve actually elicited a thrill out of her if it weren’t all too familiar. She could practically feel her lungs burning from the Arctic cold. Could feel his head cradled in her lap as she stroked his hair lovingly; like a child’s. 

Like a child they wanted to make together… 

Perhaps it was foolish of her to keep fantasizing about what a chubby-cheeked, cushy-lipped baby with chestnut hair and piercing blue eyes would feel like curled, warm and pliant, against her chest. But recently her mind seemed to conjure these perfect images, teasing her with impossible realities more often than not. Never giving up on a miracle was a hell of a lot harder than she thought. 

Just as Mulder waved frantically for her to join him, the useless, two-wheel drive Taurus sputtered dead. 

Scully bundled up and made her way over to her partner, who was arching and leaning comically in all directions trying desperately to keep the signal. She stifled a laugh when he had to freeze dipped into a low squat with his ass sticking out to hold onto it. 

She couldn't help herself. “Feel the burn, Mulder?” 

“How else do you think I maintain these manly buns of steel?” he winked.

“I bet. But I _am_ going to need my exercise tape back sometime this Millennium, you know.” 

“Sheriff? Yeah, it’s me again. Listen, Agent Scully and I are stuck here on the side of Wolverine Run. I think so, anyway... Uh, yeah, I realize it’s off the beaten path… Yeah, we’re fine right now… Hello? Yes… okay, let me put you on speaker.”

“Sheriff Colman, I hope you can help us out here.”

_“Well, Agent Scully, it’s like I said, I certainly feel for yer predicament and would love to help you two out after what you did for little Sarah, but this isn’t Washington. Up here in huntin’ territory, our plows ain’t gonna run until the snow fall slows. And, judging by the looks of things, that’s not happenin’ for hours.”_

“Wonderful,” Mulder grumbled.

_“Best to just hunker down and keep warm in that vehicle ya got there. Don’t worry, we’ll find you two in one piece by day break. We always do...”_

Mulder frowned. “Always do?” 

A loud crackling echoed through the earpiece and the line went dead.

“Well, that’s great,” he scoffed and powered down his cell to save battery for the morning. “Now what?” 

The angry winds had slowed, but they were already cold and Scully knew from their late night stakeout experiences how much colder just sitting in a car with no heat circulating could get. They needed to keep warm. “We move.”

  
  


***

  
  


Flashlights beaming, they trudged through the compacted road in tandem, wordlessly falling into a familiar rhythm. A fresh layer of fragile ice cracked sharply beneath his size eleven footfalls. Much larger compared to her petite sixes. 

Turning her face from a hard slap of glacial wind, she saw it: the graceful two step between them. Their pattern of ebb and flow stamped in the earth and displayed elegantly like a work of art. One she might hang proudly on the concrete of their basement wall if it wouldn’t raise invasive questions she was not sure if she was ready to answer. Ready to tear his clothes off and kiss him senseless, yes, but discussing it was foreign territory. 

A gentle gust wafted through the naked branches. It carried melodic sounds of undisturbed countryside and the scent of fresh pine needles fluttering through her hair. “It smells like Christmas.”

“Yeah? Most Christmases I remember smelled of Chinese delivery and my father’s stale Morleys.” 

“Oh.” Scully didn’t know how to respond to that without dredging up painful Mulder family secrets, so she stopped as they edged over a slope to scan the dark horizon. Her hopes of seeing neon lights of a gas station glowing along the indigo sky were dashed. Instead, she was struck as her vision misted with crystalline flakes glittering like blue and white fireworks around them. It was stunning. 

“Mulder…”

He moved to to her side and slung an arm around her back, rubbing her arm to curb the chill. “See something?”

“There’s Polaris. We can just keep the North Star in eyeline as we walk the roads.” She pointed above the tree line, but neither of them moved.

“I always liked watching the stars at night as a kid. Samantha and I would argue over who would look through the telescope first, hoping to make a wish upon a shooting star,” he sighed, wistful. “I’d show her the constellations and tell her the mythology behind them. She only cared about the love stories, of course, even though she wasn’t sure what she saw or what it all meant.”

“But you did.”

He smiled sadly. “Yeah. She always could find Polaris, though.”

Grazing his wool covered back comfortingly, she said, “it’s hard to believe that we’re still witnessing a celestial event of a star’s birth billions of years old.”

“Four hundred and thirty four light years old, to be exact.”

She laughed, watching their warm breath join and drift into the sky. “Of course you know that.”

“Their light is still traveling through time. It won't die, that light. In a way, it’s comforting. To know a significant moment in time can be looked back upon, like a photograph, even if no one was around to witness it occur in the first place.” 

“I never thought of it like that.”

“I like to think that’s where past loved ones look down on present souls; our lights slowing dimming as theirs burns on,” he admitted, and her chest tightened.

She watched him swallow a mouthful of frigid air with his face cast upward into the black velvet sky. Fat flakes melted against his tawny skin and she had to tear her eyes away in order to appreciate the calm of the moment. 

“Wow,” she gasped, “it’s breathtaking.”

“Yeah… it is.” His hand clasped hers as she searched the cloudless sky for constellations that seemed magnified enough to reach out and touch. He gently squeezed her palm, holding the comforting pressure. And it was then that she realized, he wasn’t talking about the stars at all. 

  
  


***

  
  


Despite the frigidity, the atmosphere seemed charged with more than just their mingling body heat. It seemed to heighten with the hush that had fallen over the wilderness as the heavens continued to weep powered diamonds. It reminded her of Midnight Mass and Christmas morning with Missy by her side. “It’s so quiet out here. Peaceful.”

“Maybe, one day, the wilderness is where I’ll drop roots. Live off the grid,” he shrugged. “Nothing but fresh air and seclusion.”

“Home, Pennsylvania lost its appeal, huh?” 

He cringed. “You could say that. Besides, I think I after all these years of fast-paced FBI life, seclusion and I could be the best of friends.”

“Hey,” she objected, “what am I, chopped liver?”

Grinning, he palmed the small of her back and faced her mock pout head on. “Of course not! You’re the peas to my carrots, Scully. No wait, the jelly to my peanut butter. The—”

“Okay, I get it,” she smiled, feeling her cheeks pinken. “I’m hungry enough as it is.”

“Probably a bad time to mention this, but I could really go for a greasy, deluxe deep dish from Gino's right about now. Or at least some seeds...”

She groaned as her gut twisted in hunger. “You’re right, it is a bad time.” If she was hungry, then her orally fixated partner surely felt like withering away from starvation. 

“And I don’t see a little boys’ room anywhere. I gotta take a pi—”

“Don’t even. It’s so unfair how men can discreetly stand off the side of the road and go. I’d rather not bare all if I can avoid it.”

“Well, I certainly won’t hold it against you if you decide to,” he offered, not bothering to conceal the shit-eating grin in his tone. 

Scully arched a brow and took his words to heart. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

As they made their way back towards the car, hoping the doors weren’t frozen shut, Mulder suddenly stopped and motioned for her to listen. “You hear that?”

A faint pendulum of creaking echoed through the forest. 

“Sounds like a squeaky door.”

“Bingo.” Mulder hopped over waved piles of snow and hoisted himself atop a mountainous mass of snowfall-covered ice. 

He clicked his flashlight back on and she shivered. “Careful, Mulder.”

“Wow!”

Scully’s heart began to race. Her fingers flexed within her fleece gloves, itching to lend a supportive touch. A silent show of solidarity. The natural urge to have her partner’s back was there from day one, but this fierce, intensifying need to be near him, to hear his voice close—almost constantly as of late—had taken her by complete surprise. After Africa, space and solitude held less importance for her than Mulder’s proximity. 

He was a part of her now. Maybe, he always had been. Her other half. _The peanut butter to her jelly?_ She huffed out a laugh, shaking her head. How absurd. 

“I see it! Looks like an old cabin hidden behind those oak trees. Probably used for hunt—ah!” Mulder jerked backward and slipped with a shout, arms flailing and feet soaring above his head as he quickly disappeared behind the powdered edge. 

“Mulder!” Her shrill panic sliced through the silence. Climbing faster through the snow than she thought possible and ignoring her rigid body’s protest, Scully lurched for him as he lay supine at the bottom, eyes closed. Still. “I’m here.”

She fell to her knees, sinking into the deep snow, thoughts focused solely on her partner. If he hit his head… She ran her hands over his chest, cupping his cheek, then fumbled with his scarf bundled around his throat to assess him. “Mul—”

Soft leather stroked her jaw and she blinked. Mulder’s eyes flew open as he held her face, a smoldering smirk tugging at his weather-worn mouth. “Had you big time.”

“W-what…” It was the same thing she had said to him in Dallas, in Antarctica... In the bullpen when she’d added her stack of background checks to his. In the office when she’d hidden his seeds... It was a running game between them, but this time she found it less than amusing. Sudden tears glossed her eyes and she trapped her lower lip between her teeth. “I thought you were hurt. Your head... and I… doesn’t matter, clearly you’re just fine.”

Her throat tightened. Seeing Mulder sprawled out with arms spread wide like a real life angel of snow had the visceral memory of him lying lifelessly along a table in a makeshift operating room crashing into her like another bullet to the gut. Hurt and embarrassed, she pushed herself off him and shoved her way through the thick blanket of snow. 

“Scully? Hey, wait up!”

“We need to get back to the car before the storm picks back up,” she tossed over her shoulder. Her body ached and her toes were numb and she did not want to talk about it; did not want to tell him how worried she was for him. How worried she’d always been. How now, she woke from nightmares no longer focused on her own past turmoil, but about her best friend was lying lifeless on a slab as men poked around in his beautiful mind, butchering him… and she wasn’t there to stop them. “We need to walk...”

“Scully.”

“...and check that cabin because the temperature is dropping…”

“Scully!”

“...and we don’t want to get caught in a whiteout without shelter—.”

“Scully, stop! Please,” he breathed, touching her wrist, dark eyes pleading through snow dusted lashes. “I shouldn’t have—I’m sorry.”

She shook her head and fisted his lapel in frustration. One hot tear skated down her frozen cheek, searing her skin. He yanked off his gloves, reaching forward to wipe away its trail, guilt seeping from his tender eyes. 

“Shit, Scully, I didn’t mean to upset you. I thought you’d laugh about me falling on my ass instead of getting it handed to me. I _am_ a disaster waiting to happen, remember?” he said softly, gently caressing her cheek with his warm hand. “I’m also an ass and I don’t deserve you.”

Scully closed her eyes and leaned in, seeking his body heat rolling off in waves. “You _are_ an ass, Mulder,” she murmured into his scarf. It smelled like winter and aftershave. “But the rest is highly debatable; unable to be supported by factual evidence.”

She met his gaze and he flashed her a relieved grin that was twice as bright as the moon above him. “You sure about that?”

Mulder’s raw lips looked painful and it reminded her of the cherry chapstick stored in her coat pocket. “My overall findings indicate that you may be an ass, but you’re _my_ ass.” 

Her ass. Her constant. Her touchstone. 

“I can live with that. And if freezing water weren’t soaking through my skivvys right now, I’d love to hear more about your ass, Scully.”

He dropped his hand reluctantly and shone a light on the cabin in the distance.

“Wait, let me just…” Scully removed one glove and puffed a breath of hot air over a hand to loosen the stiffness of her joints. Pulling out her well-used chapstick, she gently coated the fruity balm over his Cupid’s bow and swept around the curve of his bottom lip. 

His breath hitched as he said, “thank you.”

Unable to resist, Scully ran the pad of her finger across his lower lip, reveling in the feel of his pouty flesh: chapped yet pliant, warm. His lips trembled beneath her caress and the impulse to calm it with her mouth was overwhelming. 

Mulder noticed and leaned in, pausing a hair's breadth away, openly offering himself. Running her tongue across her lip as her fingers combed through his hair, her mouth ghosted across his teasingly, trapping his flesh between hers. 

He groaned as his plump lips covered her mouth completely. Soft but firm and warm as the summer sun. But this was her kissing him now, her turn. And oh, it felt fantastic.

Mulder had kissed her twice since they watched the ball drop weeks ago. Just a soft skim of their lips, tender and sweet as she left his apartment. A purposeful peck to her mouth after a case to claim the moment as _more_. But this time Scully was the one to declare herself to him, open and ready. And she was both: open to exposing her protected heart and ready to give her body to the man she loved. 

The doubt and fear that had surely been holding them back over the years was able to slide gracefully off her shoulders when their lips met, replaced only by the immense surge of love she felt for him.

And, God, how she loved him.

Their connection broke with a soft sigh from both of them. “Better?” 

He rasped, “much better.” Mulder slid his hand down to her nape, massaging with a loopy grin. “That’s some chapstick.”

“It’s my favorite flavor,” she volleyed back huskily; letting him know she understood they weren’t referring to her chapstick at all. She thumbed his bottom lip slowly, lingering before she adjusted his scarf. “Come on, let's get going. We’re both wet and our clothes will freeze soon.” 

“Think we’ll be lucky enough for it to rain sleeping bags this time?”

She smirked and replied, “I don’t think luck is an issue anymore.”

This time, as they walked together under the starry night, they did so hand in hand. 

  
  


***

  
  


They weaved through the accumulation and Scully’s lips tingled from remnants of their kiss with every step. As they approached the tiny log cabin, neither could ignore the tall drifts of soft snow blocking their access to the small porch. 

“Shit.”

“Come on, Scully,” he bent at the waist and patted the back of his coat expectantly. 

“No way.”

“Let me use my height for something more than just my layup prowess.” Tempted, but still unsure about giving in, she hid a grin and cocked a brow at the way his tight, rounded ass shimmied jokingly to entice her. 

“Half-frozen or not, I’m fully capable of walking through snow without the assistance of your _buns of steel._ ” Her teeth chattered and was not looking forward to soaking her top half too, but she couldn't help but chuckle at the sight. No matter how amazing it looked. Natural flirting and playful innuendo was never something she was good at in past relationships, but with Mulder it never felt forced. It was just them.

“Scully, the snowdrift is up to my thighs through here which means you won’t be able to walk at all. I’m just being partnerly.” He winked and she rolled her eyes, submitting with a flutter in her chest. 

This man staring at her with a lopsided grin, her best friend, was far from perfect and he knew it. But, moments like this, where he dangled his heart out on a string in the hopes that she would be ready to accept it, it was utterly endearing. Fox Mulder was an elaborate picture of imperfection, and she’d, so easily, fallen in love with him because of it. 

“Fine. I guess I could accept your chivalrous offer for once.” She stiffly hopped up along the curved planes of his back, cringing at the icy fabric adhering to her skin. But even through the thick wool of his coat she felt his muscles ripple, instantly reveling in his heat. 

“I won’t tell a soul.” Mulder gave her calves a squeeze and dashed them through the sea of snow and onto the rickety porch. 

Scully’s boots clomped chunks of snow as she slid off Mulder’s back. “This place is old.” She peaked in the lone foggy window and saw a stone fireplace with a stack of dry firewood next to it. “Look, Mulder!”

“Looks like the Ritz to me.” He jiggled the handle and practically rammed his way through. Stale air wafted out of the one room shelter as Mulder ushered her in, their flashlights shining and they immediately scanned the room. “Thank you, hunters. I appreciate deer season so much more right now. Check out the rack on that one.” His flashlight illuminated a huge mounted head with a rack of horns spanning several feet in length. 

“That’s a moose, but I share your enthusiasm because I can’t wait to warm my feet in front of that,” she grinned, moving toward the old fashioned hearth with barely stifled glee. “I’m so cold.”

“Here,” Mulder came up behind her with a large stack of blankets and pointed the flashlight towards the bearskin rug resting under the small, military style cot. “These were piled on top of that single sleeper. I’m not sure how you want to do this but I guess we can just make a nest of blankets for you and I can sleep on that bearskin…”

“Mulder...”

“Or, I can curl up on that questionably stained cot…”

“Mulder.”

“But we really need to get out of these clothes or—”

“Mulder!”

He looked up from fluffing the “nest” and blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The fire first, please. Then the part where we strip,” she chuckled with a quiver. 

“Shit, sorry.” He scrambled as quickly as he could with the cold affecting his blood flow. “I’m on it.”

Scully took a moment to look around and noticed that the tiny kitchenette had nothing of use but camping supplies and rusted cast iron skillets hanging on the log walls. She could still see her breath and an ache pulsed through her limbs. “Mulder?”

The room suddenly gleamed in an orange and red light as Mulder stoked the fire. “All set. Come on, Scully, I see you shaking from here.”

His hands were on her, removing her ice riddled scarf and helping her with the zipper of her jacket, his own numb fingers fumbling the fabric as it fell to the floor. He fell to his knees and helped her remove her stinging feet from her boots. 

“Jesus, Scully you’re freezing,” he hissed when his clothes made contact with hers. They were no longer moving at a steady pace and their bodies were absorbing the chill. “The fire should warm the cabin pretty quick. It’s small enough,” he said against her head. “Uh, I still need to use the bathroom and I actually think I’d rather risk using the ancient looking toilet attached to the kitchen cabinet than drop my drawers in that icebox out there.”

She nodded but shuddered at the thought of having to pee out in the open in front of him—not a square of toilet paper in sight—and grimaced. 

He moved away to relieve himself and she gasped. The loss of body heat was shocking. “Hurry…”

Warming her back with her eyes shut tight, she felt his return with bare, heavy arms sliding around her shoulders, palming her ribcage, enveloping her like a warm cocoon. “Where’s your shirt, Mulder?”

“Couldn’t stand it glued to my skin another second. Plus, there’s a clothesline that spans the length of the cabin.”

She hissed when her icy fingers grazed his skin as she pulled off her gloves and tossed them next to her jacket and scarf. “I know the feeling.”

Mulder‘s arms were snaked easily around her body and she wiggled in closer. “This okay?” he wondered. 

“Mm, who needs a blanket when you’ve got a Mulder?” 

“That’s high praise coming from Dana Scully, Blanket Hoarding Extraordinaire.”

“Every Christmas my mother knits me a blanket. Even though she knows I use the same one every night. It’s tradition.” His warmth heated her bones and she was positive this was the way she wanted to feel every night.

“Next time we travel in the middle of winter, don’t be stingy with your stash, partner.”

“Mm… noted,” she slurred, pliant and at ease in his arms. 

“You’ll be okay while I go back out for our go-bags? We need something dry to change into. Hopefully the trunk isn’t frozen shut…”

“No, no. Don’t go.” She was as desperate as she sounded. Mulder leaving was the last thing she wanted. “Wait, please.” She nuzzled her face into his naked sternum and tightened her grip. “Just wait.”

“I can do that.”

Quiet moments passed as they listened to the old cedar hiss and crackle. He nosed her ear as they swayed slowly and broke the silence. “You ever think about this? About us like this, together?” 

“ _This,_ being snowed in this? Because it’s hard not to recall venturing to a ice-glazed SnoCat when I can’t stop shivering.”

“As does the frozen food aisle in the supermarket,” he joked. “But, no, that’s not what I mean…”

His hesitancy was hard to overlook. Even through her trembling, she could hear an admission perched on the edge of his kissable lips. 

Looking up, her chin on his chest, she answered honestly. “Then, yes, Mulder. I do.”

“Jesus, that feels good to hear you say that,” he admitted, sealing it with a kiss to her nose. “ _You_ make me feel good, Scully. So good.”

Her limbs felt heavy and loose. Her head lolled against her shoulder as her breath rushed from her chest. She was no longer shivering as a languid haze of lust covered her like a warm blanket and heat pooled in her belly. She felt this way every time fantasies of Mulder touching her the way she wished he would prompted her fingers to dip between her thighs, making her legs shake to the memory of his voice.

“You too, Mulder. And I’ve realized that…”

He rubbed her arm and kissed her cheek, patient. “That?”

Her eyes drifted up to his, bravely releasing what had been left unsaid; a key finally freeing locked emotions. “That it’s okay for you to make me feel _good_ , too.”

“Scully…” Mulder kissed her again and again. Lips sliding sensually along one another until she gasped for air. “I wish I’d thrown caution to the wind and kissed you like this years ago.”

She swirled his chestnut locks around her finger and asked the question she’d been warring with since the dawn of the new Millennium. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because... I think… you deserve better.”

“Mulder,” she scoffed, askanced that he still felt that way. He was the most stubbornly impulsive man she had ever met, irritatingly so. And she fell in love with him because of that, not in spite of it. “Your passion, your determination to save the innocent and find the truth…” she palmed his warm chest, letting his racing heart pulse through her skin, “and your kind heart, Mulder, who wouldn’t want that?”

“But I couldn’t have done any of it without you, Scully. I wouldn’t be in one piece, that’s for sure. I’m a lucky guy.”

Scully smiled, warmth of his confession heating her insides like smoke wafting from the hearth. Bravely, her hands trailed down the muscles of his abdomen and unhooked his belt buckle. “Then thank me.”

  
  


***

  
  


Sodden clothes littered the floor like a halo above the bearskin and blankets. Naked, with only her cross necklace gleaming in the firefight, goosebumps sprayed across Scully’s skin, but it wasn’t from the weather. She clamped her jaw to keep her teeth from round two of chattering, nervousness and longing coursing in her bloodstream. 

Mulder was fully nude, bare to her like she was to him. Equally exposed within the dim lighting. It felt as invigorating as it did nerve-wracking. He held her hand as they took a moment to look at one another, and what she saw would remain seared in her mind forever. 

His abs were flexed and bulged with each breath. His hips and thighs were slim yet muscular with corded veins mapping out what lay beneath. And his cock… wow. It was large and thick, standing proudly away from his pelvis, too heavy with weight and arousal to stay upright. The thought of him making love to her with that had her aching to touch it. 

So she did.

Scully closed the gap and boldly ran her fingertips over the warm velvet of him, carefully stroking and feeling him swell even further under her hand. He moaned and clutched her hip. “My God, Mulder. Touch me, please.” She couldn’t wait anymore. 

“Christ…” he brushed the top of her breast with the heel of his palm and caressed the soft swell. Her breath lodged around her racing heart. She wanted him to touch her like this. This intimacy they’d been dancing around for far too long was hovering over them like a physical presence and it was stifling. 

Their last platonic thread pulled taut and ready to snap. 

He cupped her face as her hand explored his full mast and she claimed his mouth again. Kissing him deeper, more passionately this time, stoking a burgeoning fire of foreplay. The one that slowly burned between them for seven years, warming their bodies faster than the flames licking the fire pit ever could. 

Mulder's eyes were blazing, staring openly into her soul as she gazed back at him, feeling her heart constrict in her chest as her stomach flipped, leaving her short of breath. 

Blood rushed to her cheeks as a wonderful heaviness settled into her pelvis.

She wanted him badly. Scully wanted Mulder’s hands and his body on hers for longer than she would ever admit and solely being in his presence lately was no longer enough. She so desperately wanted to connect with him physically in the way she yearned to: Mind, body, and soul. Hungry for tactile comfort they both seemed to crave and denied themselves the satisfaction of indulgence for years. 

“Tell me, Scully,” he kissed her cheek, her jaw, dragging his fat bottom lip across hers. “What do you want?”

His thumbs grazed her pebbled nipples and she melted. “You, Mulder. I want more of you.” 

Glad to oblige, he lifted her breast up to his mouth and flicked at the taut peak of her nipple with his tongue, sending jolts down to her toes. Scully whimpered and put her hands to his head, fisting his hair as he kissed and sucked her breathless.

Scully pulled away from his mouth with a pop and softly pressed his shoulders down so he leaned back in the nest of covers. “We can share a bed.” With a grin, she lowered herself slowly into his lap, her hands sliding around the blades of his back and his fingers splayed, tracing the knots of her spine. 

“Hi,” she said with her forehead rocking along his.

Mulder gave her a peck. “Hi. However you want it, Scully. I just want you.”

Eyes locked intensely on his, she opened her thighs to encompass his hips, and he was hot, hard and heavy. Ready. Raising up, she easily slid the crown of his cock through her folds—slick and throbbing—and slowly took him all in as they breathed into each other’s mouths. 

Slowly, she moved with him, rising and falling in his lap, legs hooked around his sinewy hips as she moaned low in her throat at the bliss of being joined with Mulder.

 _Her_ Mulder. 

It had been years since a man had touched her like this. A lifetime, even. But this was Mulder doing the touching, her Polaris. Her northern star. Perhaps, she’d follow that light anywhere. 

“This is really happening…” he whispered across her collarbone as his girth stretched her to near delirium, “...finally being a part of you this way.”

She unlaced their fingers and pressed his large palm to her thunderous heart. “Mulder, you became a part of me seven years ago.”

Right now she needed to love him without explanations, with wordless intimacy. She didn’t think she could never be able to verbally express her love for him in an adequate enough way. Nothing felt more powerful, exquisite, than the way her body and soul thrummed for his own. So she simply _showed_ him instead. 

Meeting her downward strokes, he thrusted up into her, filling her body and heart. Two broken halves creating one unbreakable whole.

At that realization, she quickly started picking up the pace by swiveling her hips and pumping his shaft in and out of herself. He watched on, mouth agape, muscles flexing with his plunges as her walls stretched to accept every inch. His deep green eyes rolled to the back of his head and she kissed him for it.

Mulder offered encouragement when he felt her shudder as the head of him dragged across her g-spot. “That’s it, Scully.”

“Mmhmm…” Her spine arched and swayed, reminding her of the curving evergreen trees in the whipping wind. She could see her hair cascade down her back like a waterfall in the shadows of the flickering fire, and she let a primal moan rumble through her at the sight. Being stuck in this rustic cabin, clearly left to age among the wilderness had Scully feeling wild herself, and it felt as if their bodies danced to an ancient song among the elements. 

“You’re gorgeous,” Mulder sucked on her neck. “You’re so amazing,” he plucked at her nipples and she rocked faster. “You’re so damn sexy,” his fingers gripped her hipbone. “And you’re going to come so fucking hard…”

Scully mewled as his fingers moved between them. She was too far gone in the moment to care about anything beyond this tiny, dust layered cabin in the woods and the man worshiping her body beneath her.

Plunging in and out of her, Mulder massaged her swollen knot of nerves with his thumb, spiraling outward in slippery circles. Scully exhaled, “oh, God,” letting her jaw slacken. He touched her with precision, an exactitude of expertise. As though he held a secret that no one but her could ever know. She was expecting an air of awkwardness or the usual fumbling of fingers to elicit anything close to such a reaction from her, but she should have known Mulder would not be like the men from her distant past. He was not like anyone at all. 

His hips moved in rhythmic strokes and she felt the crest of an orgasm burgeon in her belly. “Oh, Mul—!” She stiffened and shook, tightening around him over and over as she felt the vibration of his satisfied crooning under her palms. 

“Fuck, that was… holy shit, Scully, so beautiful.” Lacing his fingers with hers, he kissed her wrist, her forearm, her chest, before easily twisting her lax body underneath him and settling between her thighs. “So beautiful,” he said along her lips. His hot, fat length set atop her pelvis, waiting for her to recover. 

Blinking back tears, Scully thumbed his jawline just inches from her own and let her eyes express just how much she loved him. How much this monumental night meant to her, and his eyes responded in kind. 

“Mulder? she murmured and kissed his cheek. “Fuck me, please.”

“Holy shit!” Just then, Mulder reared back and palmed the back of her thighs, gently spreading and pressing her knees to her shoulders as he began pumping harder. “Let me… know if… I’m hurting you.”

“Oh, Jesus don’t stop,” Scully whimpered and wet slapping filled the gaps between their gasping as he slid himself deeply in and out of her depths with growing need. 

She breathed a long, low moan into the elemental atmosphere nature so generously provided and began to surge with him. They were beautiful. Alabaster and bronze joined in eroticism. Perfect opposites in every way, filling each other’s hearts as he filled her body. 

A fine sheen of sweat shone on the quaking muscles of his arms as another coiling orgasm peaked within. 

“Mulder I’m going to...”

“Come,” he urged against her skin. “Come with me.”

Mulder pounded harder as Scully swirled against him one last time and came in a blinding, shuddering wave. Just as suddenly as her second orgasm came, so did his. He spilled into her, fingers gripping her skin as her name rolled off his tongue in raucous reverence, shattering like starlight as winter raged on around them.

Scully had known this was exactly what she wanted to feel with the man she loved; what they both wanted. It was the only thing left to experience together: the transcendent moment of friends to lovers. But a niggle of fear reminded her that it didn’t guarantee they would not wake up with the morning sun and wonder if their culmination of love was worth risking it all. 

The world hadn’t ended weeks ago, no. But maybe—just maybe— _their_ world had started anew.

  
  


***

  
  


As their clothing dried above them and the ambers burned on, Scully’s heart did too with Mulder’s chest rising and falling beneath her face. Her nails gently scratched his sparse body hair as their legs vined together. 

Sated and lovestruck. 

Even though her life with this man had taken her on a path a million miles from where she’d started, and although they had both experienced so much pain, Scully could say now that she still meant what she said to Mulder years before and with just as much conviction. She wouldn’t change a day. Especially not this day. 

“Wow, Scully, I just…” Mulder’s voice cracked with emotion.

Wrapping an arm around his ribs, fingertips feathering down each one, she agreed, “I know. I really do.”

“I think maybe your sister was right," he mused after moments passed with her body cradled close. "About fate… about seeing the light through the darkness.”

Scully's arched brow urged him to continue. They rarely spoke openly like this and she knew little of what Missy had told Mulder after she’d been returned, but she had an idea of what that message meant to him. “Oh?” 

“I find darkness and I’m only able to see the world clearly with a light shining to guide my way. You’re my light in the dark, Scully.”

She kissed the hollow of his throat. “Fate, then.” 

“Thought you didn’t believe in fate?”

“I think… I think I believe in this, Mulder: you and me. And maybe, that’s all I need.” 

  
  


***

  
  


Hours later, as darkness melded into dawn, their sweat-slicked bodies mingled and surged as one once again through the firelit shadows. Mulder had imprinted himself within her heart and body—here and now—and nothing could take that away. Together, they had marked their coupling in history, like two mortal beings celestially merged in the northern stars forever. 

Their light, undying. 

  
  


***

  
  


Two decades later, Scully gazed languidly at the love of her life, breathless and sated under the Virginia starlight, their fingers and limbs braided and bound like knotted rope. And she knew, as their sweet, fiery-haired daughter slumbered on, that with every darkness there was light. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for any feedback you may have left me. I threw in quite a few episode references in this so if you caught them (some are from the original run and others from the revival) I’d LOVE to know. Side note: I had too much fun writing them doing the naked pretzel in front of a fire!!!
> 
> ❄️Merry Christmas❄️


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